A piece on the iconic and unusual NorthPark Center in Dallas appears in the April issue. Imagine a shopping center with stunning plantings, world-class art, and no hard-sell kiosks! An excerpt….
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The indoor mall muddles on, even with shoppers flocking to open-air lifestyle centers and made-from-scratch main streets. Many American malls have become ghostly atria waiting for wrecking balls, though most metropolitan areas still have a busy mall or two. This mid-century brainstorm seems destined to stay with us to bring the next generation of mall rats into the brooding cabanas of Abercrombie & Fitch, Old Navy’s blinding gaeity, and the shabby glamour of Forever 21. These malls all look the same. A Hot Mama store or Nike store needs a familiar enticement to bring people in, and every mall’s plantings need to be comfortable but not distracting.
The formula makes one exception notable: NorthPark Center opened north of downtown Dallas in 1965. It could have been a Ficus-and-kiosk creation inside. But it was developed by Raymond and Patsy Nasher, who were prominent Dallas area art collectors. . “They put art where normally there would be retail,” explains Judy Cunningham, a botanist and landscape designer and founder of MESA Design Group, “[and] the landscape is art.”
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This issue of LAM is available free on line here.
Adam Regn Arvidson 
NorthPark is the only mall I have seen in my lifetime that I could stomach. Another debt owed to Raymond Nasher by the people of Dallas.